Natural Childbirth Options

The experience that a woman has during childbirth shapes how the rest of her child-raising experience goes, in many ways. A good birth can have a huge effect on how good you feel about your child, whereas a bad birth can often lead to feelings of sadness or PDST-type symptoms due to the pain and struggle of the birth experience. However, you don't need to worry about that now, because the information in this book gives you ALL of the experience and expert advice that you need in order to have a really amazing birth, that really marked that day as the truly special day that it is. This book teaches you how to use natural, holistic remedies to heal yourself during pregnancy in order to make sure that you feel your best during the whole birth experience. You can also learn everything you need to know about natural birth Everything you need to know to have a great pregnancy and birth is in this guide! Continue reading...

The Samburu are sexually permissive toward young people. It is expected that girls and Imurran will be sexually active, and a mother will sometimes formally sanction a relationship between her daughter and an Imurran, who will give the girl a large gift of beads (Spencer, 1965 Straight, 2002). Lmurran and their beaded girlfriends are from the same exogomous clan, and thus cannot later marry. Lmurran and girls avoid pregnancy through the withdrawal method, as it is considered an abomination for an uninitiated girl to give birth. However, should a girl become pregnant, the women in her family will usually assist her in aborting, or else initiate her quickly. These days it is a common precaution to initiate girls early if they are attending boarding school.

The anthropology of Western childbirth has represented a core element in studies of birthing systems from Jordan's comparative research through the 1990s. A consistent theme in this body of research emphasizes that the dominant cultural definition of birth in the United States is a medical one, in which pregnancy is viewed as a pathological state, requiring specialist attention and hospital delivery. Accordingly, the medicalization of childbirth, characterized by use of technological interventions during birth, such as episiotomy (a surgical incision of the vagina to widen the birth outlet), intravenous medication, and the lithotomy (suppine) position for delivery, have become standard procedures (Davis-Floyd, 1992 Jordan, 1978 Romalis, 1981). This widespread use of technology has led Davis-Floyd to suggest the term technocratic birth, in her classic study of birth as an American rite of passage. Technocratic birth predominates in the United States, where 98 of women give birth in...

Among the principal studies of local birthing systems from the decade of the 1980s are those by Sargent, Laderman, and MacCormack. These studies are characterized by ethnographic detail as well as careful articulation of childbirth as an event with broader sociocultural issues such as gender ideology, domestic power relations, professional specialization, and the components of In one case, for example, Ganigi, a woman experiencing her tenth pregnancy, confronted complications during labor that challenged local healers. Ganigi initially adhered to the Bariba ideal of delivering alone but called her mother when she delivered the umbilical cord prior to the birth of the baby. Her labor then stopped. This unusual circumstance led the family to call a respected local midwife, known for her spiritual powers. The midwife diagnosed the protrusion as a woman's affliction known as tigpiru, and offered a herbal remedy. When that failed to accelerate labor, a second midwife and the anthropologist...

By the middle of the nineteenth century attention was given to improvement in methods of creaming. These efforts gave birth to the deep-setting system. Up to that time, creaming was done by a method called shallow pan. The deep-setting system shortened the time for creaming and produced a better-quality cream. An inventive Bavarian brewer in 1864 conceived the idea of adapting the principle of the laboratory centrifuge. In 1877 a German engineer succeeded in designing a machine that, although primitive, was usable as a batch-type apparatus. In 1879 engineers in Sweden, Denmark, and Germany succeeded in the construction of cream separators for fully continuous operation (1).

I Uterine anomalies These anomalies can be malformations of the shape of the uterus and can also contribute to endometriosis. Approximately 2 to 4 percent of all women have some sort of uterine anomaly. Uterine anomalies that are congenital (present from birth) often arise from problems with the Mullerian ducts. (Check out the next section.)

Frayser (1985, pp. 341 ff) points out that patrilineal societies have some difficulty with women's reproduction. They need to have reproduction for their kin groups, but elevating the status of mothers is somewhat antithetical to the patrilineal principle. On the other hand, if patrilineal societies denigrate women too much, they risk having women who are not interested in having children. Patrilineal systems depend upon passing membership in kin groups through males, so it is also important for a man to know that the children his wife gives birth to are his. Frayser suggests and presents evidence to support the notion that patrilineal societies are more interested in limiting a woman's sexuality and reproduction to a particular husband by insisting on premarital and extramarital sex restrictions and by making it harder for a woman to obtain a divorce. Restrictive societies also tend to have elaborate marriage arrangements and ceremonies and honeymoons that isolate the couple.

The development of tests to prenatally diagnose genetic diseases and disorders has greatly outpaced the development of effective treatments and therapies. The Human Genome Project promises to accelerate the development of prenatal diagnostic tests. Through procedures like chorionic villus sampling (CVS), which can be performed at ten weeks gestation, and amniocentesis, available at fourteen to sixteen weeks, numerous genetic abnormalities in the fetus can be detected in utero. The tests are routinely administered to women at risk for fetal abnormalities, such as older mothers and those with a family history of genetic disorder. Ultrasound, which is routinely performed throughout most pregnancies, can detect a number of abnormalities as well, including neural tube defects that can result in severe physical and cognitive disability and death. In rare instances, fetal therapy, including surgery, can correct the problems, but the overwhelming majority of pregnant women whose fetuses are...

Women are also said to be warriors in some contexts, such as childbirth, which demand courage and endurance. The funeral dances conducted for both men and women are referred to as war dances, although the men's version actually mimics the techniques of warfare while the women's focuses on complex steps and drum patterns. There are no culturally recognized third genders or cross-gendered persons, but transvestism is common in ritual contexts like the men's war dance and another funeral dance performed for women of child-bearing age. In the case of the men's war dance, transvestite elements signal the transcendence of the warrior over all normal social categories, including gender (Moran, 1996).

Though there are no formal age-sets as such, there are terms for the various stages in life. Ola-pe is the term for children from birth to about 4 or 5 years old. Tsetseya-pe refers to those from about age 6 to 12 or 13. Elati-nakwete refers to boys during their teens and up till they get married at about 18-20. Tlakwenakweko is the term for girls in their teens up until they marry at about 17. Elati is the term for adults of both sexes, elati-ka-eh is the term for someone who has already had two or three children, pa-nekwete is the term for a person about 45-60 years old, pa-nekwete-ka-eh refers to someone in their seventies, and balambala is someone who is really old and becoming frail.

For much of Chinese history, the family was organized around an ideology of filial piety that encouraged total obedience, respect, and loyalty toward the father. By controlling the distribution of the family inheritance, a father could affect a special, if not psychological, dependency on the part of the child. On the other hand, a mother's parenting style was seen as much a result of being considered an outsider as it was of a natural attachment fostered through childbirth and early child-care. Given her lower status in her husband's family, the mother needed a friend, an ally, and what better one than her own child. In this way, the different access to and use of economic and psychological resources contributed to the elaboration of the two complementary parenting styles the father as an aloof spouse and disciplinary provider, and the mother as an equally aloof spouse but, toward her children, an intimate nurturer.

That women have a greater ability to detect potential pheromones is of significance since the propagation of the species is based on their sexual activity, and, hence, birth rates are maximized by women's appropriate response to pheromones. Existence of pheromones is also suggested based on territorial markings. Gustavson et al. placed androstenol and androstenediol underneath bathroom stalls in a men's room and watched where men sat (67). They tended to avoid those stalls with the androstenol, suggesting that it may act not only as a pheromone but also as a repellent or territorial marker for other males.

Men say the reason why women are clitorectomized is that babies would otherwise have difficulty during delivery since the clitoris would protrude and obstruct the birth canal. However, at least one Hadza man also says that, without cutting off the clitoris, a woman will move around too much and make too much noise during sex.

Cerebral aneurysms have a distinct male predominance (12 1), occurring most frequently in the distal middle cerebral artery distribution or the posterior circulation.109 They also have a higher incidence of large giant aneurysms compared to adults. They are associated with head and birth trauma, infection (mycotic), fibro-muscular dysplasia, moyamoya disease, coarctation of the aorta, subacute bacterial endocarditis, collagen vascular disease, EDS, Marfan syndrome, syphilis, sickle cell anemia, and tuberous sclerosis. Rupture of the aneurysm may occur, resulting in intracranial hemorrhage. The case of a 7-month-old boy with SDH in association with a cluster of six basilar artery aneurysms was reported by Plunkett.110

The American biomedical model of birth has been exported to much of the developing world, and anthropologists have documented the accommodation and resistance of local birthing systems to encounters with imported biomedical obstetrics. Following Jordan's comparative approach, anthropologists have explored variations in the use of obstetric technology in numerous countries, and have documented cross-national variation in the ways birth is managed within European medical systems. The persistence of midwifery in the Netherlands, where mid-wives attend 70 of births, the home birth rate is still 30 , and maternal and child health outcomes exceed those of neighboring countries, has attracted considerable anthropological interest. As Jordan initially documented, the comparison of biomedical systems among industrialized societies effectively illustrates the ways in which obstetrics is culturally influenced and shaped. The anthropological interest in contested power relations surrounding...

I shall first elaborate on a comprehensive study that included 114 children with Down syndrome who were followed closely from birth to their third birthday. One of the objectives of this investigation was to study the interrelationships of biological, environmental, and competency variables of these children (Reed and Pueschel, 1980).

Subsequent to 1970, increased anthropological interest in birth assistance and midwifery practice moved the field beyond brief ethnographic accounts and surveys to more contextualized analyses of birth. This growing attention to the ways in which pregnancy and delivery are culturally shaped generated an important literature on the management of birth in industrialized societies. From the 1970s, more women anthropologists entered the field. Inspired by the second wave of feminism and with greater access to information about birth practices derived from empirical observations, they began to explore birthing systems as local systems of knowledge and praxis, grounded in broader cultural and social contexts United States. While midwives usually occupy a respected position in society (e.g., in Jamaica, peninsular Malaysia, and much of Africa), exceptions exist in India, for instance, the position of midwife (dai) is allocated to low-caste women, because of the association of birth and...

The depth of the husband-wife relationship is expressed through the typical way in which a wife gives birth. Either a midwife or the wife's mother will be present with the woman and her husband. The husband is expected to assist the wife throughout the birth process. Again, the hammock is used, with the elder woman instructing the wife to assume various positions. This expectation is not always fulfilled, however, and women have been known to give birth by themselves.

Despite these changes in patterns of courtship and in the criteria for marriage, three elements remain paramount the social expectation that everyone must marry, the importance of marriage as an alliance between two kin groups, and the centrality of parenthood as the foundation for a successful marriage. Traditional marriage ceremonies, in which the extended families and communities of origin of both the husband and the wife participate, continue to constitute the principal rite of passage marking marriage. Though many couples now choose to be married in their Christian churches, as well as in the traditional ceremony, the traditional ceremony is obligatory, while the Christian ceremony is optional (though, for many, highly desirable). The years after marriage are characterized by great anticipation of pregnancy and childbirth, and nothing is more important in establishing the stability of a marriage than parenthood. The transformation of a couple's relationship from courtship to...

The next most common cause of neonatal stridor is vocal cord paralysis or paresis. Most infants will have a history of birth trauma, shoulder dystocia, macrosomia, forceps delivery, an abnormal cry, or other intrathoracic anomaly. Diagnosis is typically by flexible fiberoptic laryngoscopy with visualization of the cords during speech or crying. Endotracheal intubation can be quite difficult in a child with bilateral vocal cord paralysis. Placing the bevel of the endotracheal tube parallel to the small remaining glottic opening and rotating the endotracheal tube one-quarter turn while applying gentle pressure may assist in passing the tube. Force should not be used, as this may damage the laryngeal structures. Needle cricothyroidotomy and subsequent tracheotomy may be required to secure the airway. It is unlikely that the laryngeal mask airway (LMA) would be helpful in this case. Use of the LMA is contraindicated in abnormal or obstructed airways because the path of least resistance to...

Another way of decreasing pain from the pelvis caused by endometriosis is to interrupt the nerve fibers that carry pain messages from the pelvic organs and covering. These fibers are part of the sympathetic nerve system the tiny nerves come from both sides of the pelvis and form visible nerve fibers on the surface of the sacrum, hence the term presacral. These nerves don't have any other known function, so cutting them only affects pain sensation. For instance, these nerves don't affect labor or pushing during childbirth, nor do they affect sexual response.

Certain mythical beliefs substantiate the far-reaching gender equality in Orang Suku Laut society, for instance, the origin myth or the narrative that explains how people once learnt the way of giving birth which is still common today. One of the reasons why birth is not an exclusively female responsibility, but sometimes also involves the presence and active assistance of men (see section on pregnancy and birth), is illuminated in the following narrative. In ancient times, males rather than females became pregnant and gave birth to children. To be able to do this, a man's abdomen had to be ripped, and consequently every man had to die while giving birth for the first time. Later on, females were asked to bear the children because, it was argued, women have vaginas. However, the females, who did not know any other way but the male way, also had to die in childbirth, up to the time when they observed the monkeys on the shore giving birth to their young. From them they learnt how to...

On the other hand, men are highly dependent on women for their domestic well-being (Holtzman, 2002). Women feed men and provide men with children through their sexuality, which they control to a great extent. It is not uncommon to encounter very thin men whose wives have been withholding food partially or utterly from them. A husband's recourses are limited, since men who complain risk being perceived as putting their own stomachs above the needs of their family. Similarly, women frequently engage in surreptitious extramarital affairs, giving birth to children not sired by their husbands. These children will be raised in the settlement, except in rare cases, directly affecting men's happiness, prestige, and well-being.

Swaziland's economy has continued to experience growth in the post-apartheid period. However, the birth rate has surpassed the rate of economic growth. As the HIV AIDS epidemic has become entrenched in southern Africa, Swaziland has not been spared. At the end of 1999, it was estimated that 25.3 of the adult population was living with HIV AIDS (US Census, 2000, p. 1). By 1998, one third of pregnant women and a quarter of 15-19-year-olds were HIV-positive. This has to be factored into any projections on the future of Swaziland's economy.

Modes of cognitive development enactive (movement-based), iconic (based on stored memory), and symbolic (based on symbols and words) and skill theory - a reinterpretation of Piaget's stages in terms of information-processing operations whereby each stage is considered to be an extended period of skill acquisition demonstrated by children achieving new competencies, integrating them with others, and transforming them into more efficient, higher-order skills . According to Pia-get, four major and distinct stages occur sequentially in development where each child must pass through all four stages (cf., multistage theories - posit that certain processes go through a number of changes where, in some cases, the stages are clear - as in information-processing - and in other cases, the stages are somewhat arbitrarily set the individual moves from one phase to another in a continuous manner even though events may move in an abrupt fashion). However, Piaget's stages are not rigidly fixed in a...

The ongoing struggle to maintain unreliable body borders, and the anxiety that accompanies it, means that the sites at which the border fails to delimit the clean and proper body require regulation. Regulation includes not only the individual's attempts to control or purify his or her body, but also external regulation. Abjection stimulates a social response in the communal regulation of law and taboo. Kristeva discusses numerous examples of regulation of the abject through law, ritual, and taboo. As one example, she examines the biblical laws laid down in Leviticus, which relate to diet, disease, childbirth, incest, and menstruation. In the Torah, unclean food is associated with indeterminate beings or practices. Fish without gills, birds that do not fly, and animals without cloven hooves are not to be consumed as food. Biblical laws also forbid eating blood and cooking a young goat in its mother's milk. Circumcision as a ritual separates the male child from his mother. There are...

Although medicalization is a concept that has been widely taken up and used by medical anthropologists, it was sociologists who first coined the term and put it into circulation. One of the abiding interests of sociologists concerned with modernization and its effects, particularly those who followed in the legacy of Emile Durkheim and Talcott Parsons, has been to show how social order is produced and sustained in contemporary society. In this vein the sociologist Irving Zola (1972) argued in the early 1970s that medicine had become a major institution of social control, replacing the more traditional institutions of religion and law, resulting in the medicalizing of many aspects of daily life in the name of health. Zola's publication, in which he makes it clear that he is by no means totally opposed to the process he highlights, gave birth to a genre of research in which the cumbersome word medicalization to make medical was adopted as a key concept.

Dietary micronutrient intake is lower than the amount required for maximum biological benefit. Every person does not have the same micronutrient requirements. The amount of micronutrients required by any person is determined by metabolic, genetic, and environmental factors unique to that person. It may not be readily apparent when micro-nutrient supplements are needed by certain groups of people. Therefore, as new information becomes available, recommendations for supplementation must be revised. For example, it was observed that pregnant women with periconceptual folate intake at the low end of the range of recommended intake, which was still considered adequate, had an increased risk of giving birth to an infant with neural tube defects (NTDs) such as spina bifida. NTDs originate during the first 4 weeks of pregnancy, before a woman may even realize that she is pregnant. United States survey data (1988-1994) indicated that typical dietary folate intake by women of reproductive age...

Most people agree that financial compensation should be made to the surrogate for her time and effort in initiating and carrying the pregnancy, her acceptance of the hazards of pregnancy and childbirth, delivering the baby, and her possible loss of employment opportunities. Do not compensate the surrogate for delivering an acceptable product. This means that payment to the surrogate should not be contingent upon her delivering a healthy live-born baby because this would seem to devalue human life and turn surrogacy into a financial baby buying business.

In the Caribbean, rites of passage indicating the transition from boyhood to manhood include engaging in heterosexual sex, and fathering and providing financially for one's own children. The transition from girlhood to womanhood is marked by rites such as reaching menarche and giving birth to one's own child. Caribbean men gain status and respect, and are considered adults, when they can provide for their families (Leo-Rhynie, 1997, p. 35). Young women gain status in their communities when they assume motherhood (Leo-Rhynie, 1997, p. 34).

West Indians are brought up to respect their elders. Older adults are considered to be wise and are well respected in their communities both in the Caribbean and in West Indian immigrant neighborhoods in the United States. While unmarried middle-aged women who have not given birth to children are often stigmatized as spinsters, older persons of both genders are generally respected even if they do not have children. Older adults who have children expect their children to support them in their old age. The social status gained by older adults is evidenced in the West Indian practice of referring to elderly adults as Grandmother or Grandfather and middle-aged adults as Auntie or Uncle. This is the custom even in

The medical reason for sex selection is to prevent sex-linked genetic disorders, as discussed in Chapter 10. Ideally, the best way to screen for a genetic disorder would be to test for the specific gene that is causing the disorder, but unfortunately, science and technology have not yet reached that point for many diseases. Therefore, the only way to prevent a known sex-linked genetic disorder is to choose to give birth to a baby of the sex that is not affected. For example, if a woman carries the gene for hemophilia, then 50 percent of her sons will have hemophilia, a life-threatening disease. Girls born to this woman will not have the disease, though they could be carriers of hemophilia. To ensure that her children will not have hemophilia, the woman either decides to abort male fetuses or chooses not to transfer male embryos back into her uterus. Of course, this is not ideal, because healthy male embryos may be discarded. Though still a new technology, MicroSort, which helps to...

X-linked recessive alleles affect males more often and more severely than females. A male inherits his single X chromosome from his mother. Because a male has only one X chromosome, he expresses every allele on it, including harmful recessive ones. Examples of conditions due to recessive X-linked alleles include Duchenne muscular dystrophy, one form of hemophilia, and red-green colorblindness. These conditions are much more common in males than in females. Female carriers have a 50 percent chance of giving birth to a male child affected by the recessive allele. The genetic status of the father with respect to X-linked conditions is not relevant in this case, because he donates a Y chromosome to his male children.

Delivery. 13 Newborn girls can acquire infection from their infected mothers during passage through the birth canal and remain asymptomatic until puberty. Transmission of T. vaginalis in children before and after puberty may be indirect especially in an environment with infected family members. 13

The study of intelligence must take environmental effects into account. The Flynn effect describes a phenomenon that indicates that IQ has increased about 3 points per decade over the last fifty years, with children scoring higher than parents in each generation. This increase has been linked to multiple environmental factors, including better nutrition, increased schooling, higher educational attainment of parents, less childhood disease, more complex environmental stimulation, lower birth rates, and a variety of other factors.

The pathogenesis of alcoholism is multifactorial, with both genetic and environmental inputs. Studies of isolated twins, adopted children, and families in general have confirmed a heritable component to alcoholism. Similarly, twin research has shown that the risk of alcoholism for an identical twin of an alcoholic is much greater than that of a fraternal twin. Close relatives of alcoholics have a fourfold risk of alcoholism over control subjects, even when they are adopted children raised away from their genetic family from birth.

Muslim women in the First Crusade (p. 31), Japanese concentration camp rape and camp brothels in World War II (p. 62), and the rape and murder of women by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam (p. 103). Military brothels servicing American soldiers in Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam created an image of Southeast Asia as a sex capital (Perpinan, 1994). Upon occupying Tibet in 1949, Chinese soldiers raped and impregnated Tibetan women as a means of ethnic cleansing and humiliation for Tibetan men (Campaign Free Tibet, 1994). Serbian soldiers did the same, raping Bosnian Muslim women and denying them abortions so they might give birth to little Chetniks (Drakulic, 1994, p. 180).

Poorly controlled gestational diabetes is associated with an increase in the incidence of preeclampsia, polyhydramnios, fetal macrosomia, birth trauma, operative delivery, and neonatal hypoglycemia. There is an increased incidence of hyperbilirubinemia, hypocalcemia, and erythremia. Later development of diabetes mellitus in the mother is also more frequent. The prevalence of gestational diabetes is higher in black, Hispanic, Native American, and Asian women than white women. The prevalence of gestational diabetes is 1.4 to 14 percent.

At the same time certain feminists, among them anthropologists, publicly characterized medicine as a patriarchal institution because, in their estimation, the female body was increasingly being made into a site for technological intervention in connection with childbirth and the reproductive life cycle in general (Oakley, 1980, 1984 Romalis, 1981). Similarly to what had happened in 18th-century Europe, medical anthropologists, including Fiedler (1997), Fraser (1992), Jordan (1978), Laderman (1983), O'Neil and Kaufert (1990), Pigg (1997), and Sargent (1989), among many others, have documented the ways in which midwifery has been forcibly professionalized, systematized, and placed under the authoritative knowledge (Jordan, 1997) of governments and the medical profession. the home-birth movement and to widespread use of alternative therapies and remedies of numerous kinds. But empirical research has also made clear that the responses of individuals to the availability of biomedical...

In addition to mandating services for children over the age of 3, Part C of IDEA makes available services for children from birth up to age 3. Infant-toddler services within IDEA recognized the need to augment the development of children with disabilities, minimize the need for later special education via early intervention, capitalize on one's ability to live independently, and to improve the capacity of a family to meet the needs of their child.

The ability to behave in a socially acceptable manner (p. 757). For example, Marshall (1996) notes that among societies of the Caroline Islands in Micronesia individuals impaired from birth defects, accidents, or diseases are not necessarily considered disabled unless the impairment is coupled with an inability to speak and or hear that is with an inability to manipulate culture and to participate in the social life of the community (p. 254). These Micronesian societies appear not to stigmatize people with many kinds of physical impairments, as long as one is personally and culturally competent.

See an entry for this activity in an encyclopedia. But as with similar life cycle phenomena such as pregnancy, childbirth, and puberty, breast-feeding for contemporary humans is never simply a biological phenomenon, but is typically embedded in a dense context of beliefs, values, and traditions. Breast-feeding also seems to provide benefits for the mother. Nursing an infant soon after birth speeds a woman's recovery from the stresses of childbirth. Breast and ovarian cancer rates and osteoporosis are lower among women who breast-fed their infants. Certainly one can argue that having a healthy infant is advantageous to a mother's health, as well.

Poultry and swine require a dietary source of all 10 essential (or indispensable) amino acids for growth, production, and reproduction. These essential amino acids are arginine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine. Cystine and tyrosine can replace or spare'' some of the methionine and phenyalanine, respectively, that might, in their absence, be required for cystine and tyrosine synthesis. The l-isomers are required metabo-lically, although in some cases the d-isomers may be converted to the l-form in the liver (e.g., d-methionine in poultry and swine). Young, rapidly growing broilers and turkeys also require dietary glycine plus serine and proline, because these amino acids may not be synthesized at an adequate rate. Diets should contain adequate protein also, to provide nitrogen for synthesis of the other nonessential (or dispensable) amino acids. Amino acid requirements as a percentage of the diet decline from birth to...

Discrete flows or semiflows are also applied extensively in modeling other phenomena of the time evolution of populations. An important field where this happens is the dynamics of a single species in which age structure is to be taken into account. In the case of most long-lived organisms, the per capita birth rate is related to the total population but it is clear that the only age groups participating in reproduction are those that have reached maturity and thus if the number of newly born offspring is related to the number of those who produce them one will necessarily obtain different ratios depending on the age group considered. Similarly, death rate usually is also age dependent. There is another problem (which will not be considered here) the role played in the division of total population into two sexes for species that reproduce in a sexual way. We mention only that one generally gets more realistic results if the number of offspring is related to the number of females, the...

Childhood in the ancient world had a darker side some people practiced infanticide as a means of birth control or eugenics (French) some children were sold into slavery and some of the little slaves were maimed so that they could be more pitiable beggars. Additionally, the use of wet nurses for the newborn was common and undoubtedly led to higher infant mortality rates. Wet nursing led to higher infant mortality because there was a greater possibility of disease, the wet nurse had less concern for the child than the mother did, and the amount of nourishment from the wet nurse might have been less. Infanticide was common, and such evidence as there is suggests that it was more common for female children than for male children to be killed by being abandoned and left to starve. A Roman law, for instance, said that all boy children and at least one girl born to a family had to be raised. In Sparta (from 700 to about 350 b.c.e.) infanticide was part of a program of eugenics whereby...

Partial birth abortion is a nonmedical term coined by anti-abortionists to describe an abortion procedure known technically as intact dilation and extraction (D&amp X). D&amp X is used primarily in second trimester abortions, and the procedure involves partially delivering a living fetus into the birth canal, then collapsing the skull and completing delivery of a dead but otherwise intact fetus. In an amici brief to the Supreme Court, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists noted that D&amp X involves substantially less risk of complication than other methods of abortion used during the same gestational period (Stenberg v. Carhart, 2000). Fewer than five percent of abortions performed in

Ricketts and osteomalacia of nutritional origin are common in developing countries, more so in women in childbearing age who wear purdha.12-15 Osteomalacia in India is common especially in females who are under purdah, repeated childbirth with prolonged lactation and poor intake because of economic and sociocultural reasons.12 Reports from northern India revealed low serum 25 (OH) vitamin D in healthy individual which, has been attributed to low intake of calcium and poor sun exposure especially in adolescents females.16,17 WWE with preexisting nutritional osteomalacia when exposed to AEDs, particularly to enzyme-inducing AEDs are at a greater risk of developing abnormalities in calcium and bone metabolism. High rate of home deliveries by traditional birth-attendants - Emphasis should be made for attended delivery, preferably in the hospital.

Development is defined as the sequence and patterns of changes that occur over the full life span of an organism. The area of developmental psychology initially - via G. Stanley Hall in the early 1900s, who proposed a biogenetic theory of development - referred to the study of the full life span from birth to death, but today the tendency is to use the term, also, in more specific ways (e.g., developmental aphasia, developmental articulation disorder, developmental psycholinguistics, etc.). The thing

Changes in body proportion from birth to adult. The newborn's relatively large head, with large eyes and small chin (not shown) combined with small arms and legs is perceived as helpless, cute, or in need of care in many human cultures. Infants and children retain these body proportions until at least seven years of age.

As noted above, breast-feeding a child is a somewhat predictable part of the life course for most women. That does not mean that initiation of nursing is routine and easy. Most populations also have cultural rules that women must follow during pregnancy to prepare for and ensure successful breast-feeding. These may include specific foods to eat or avoid, the wearing of special clothing and amulets, and other prescribed or restricted behaviors. Following birth, cultural practices relating to breast-feeding a child may include avoiding sexual relations, food restrictions, and performing ritual acts. Dana Raphael describes the tradition of the doula, a family member or friend whose primary role is to assist a new mother in breast-feeding her child (Raphael, 1973). Although the word itself is Greek and describes a person who assists women after childbirth (mothering the mother), the practice is found throughout the world, evidence that breast-feeding is not something that comes easily to...

Always check with your doctor before you begin any physical activity to make sure that it's safe for you to exercise during your pregnancy. Some questions have been raised about the effects of exercise on pregnant women, but there is no proof that gentle exercise has any negative effects. Studies have not shown any benefits for the baby, but exercise might help you feel better and maintain your weight. Exercise also helps prepare a woman for childbirth by strengthening the muscles and increasing vitality, and it will be much easier to get back into shape after the baby has been born. If you don't have any serious medical problems and you have an uncomplicated pregnancy, it is probably safe for you to do some exercising. Preterm labor (A typical full-term pregnancy lasts 37 to 42 weeks, calculated from the first day of your last menstrual period to childbirth. Preterm labor, or premature labor, is the early onset of uterine contractions before 37 weeks, but after 20 weeks of pregnancy.)

Studies focusing directly on birthing systems (for further discussion, see Browner &amp Sargent, 1996). Exceptions include Montagu's (1949) discussion of Australian aboriginal understandings of fetal development and Malinowski's (1932) commentary on ideas and practices concerning birth among Trobriand Islanders. A few comparative surveys on human reproduction such as that by Ford (1964) basically provide lists of reproductive customs from societies around the world, and include some detail on pregnancy, delivery, and the postpartum period. For example, references to pregnancy in Ford's compilation on 64 societies include mention of seemingly illogical food taboos, sexual regulations, and tabooed acts to prevent miscarriage, birth defects, or stillbirth. With reference to birth, world surveys such as Ford's offer brief descriptions of techniques of delivery in preindustrial societies, noting such details as delivery position (women may sit, kneel, or squat occasionally a standing...

In tracing the demographic history of developed countries it became apparent that a rather regular pattern of change in population growth had taken place. Historical demographers devised a theory to account for this pattern, referred to as the demographic transition model. In its purest application, populations experienced three stages initially represented by high levels of births (largely through short birth intervals) and deaths (largely through high infant and childhood mortality) that for the most part offset one another, so that there was little or no population growth. At a second stage, spurred on by improved quality of life through medical advancement, food production, and distribution, death rates declined while birth rates remained high. This, of course, led to an increase in population size. For the third stage, the theory stated that with continued economic and technological development, which brought about more opportunities and incentives to control family size, birth...

In Southeast Asia, Indonesia provides a similar set of circumstances and health conditions after Independence from Dutch colonial rule. Gardiner and Oey (1987) document a disease profile for Java before independence dominated by infectious and communicable diseases, notably cholera, smallpox, malaria, typhoid, dysentery, and tuberculosis. The Handbook of the Netherlands East-Indies, 1924 warns Dutch colonialists of the persistence of the contagious abdominal troubles enteric fever, amebic and bacillary dysentery, cholera, malaria as well as hookworm disease, yaws, beri-beri, leprosy, plague, and smallpox that affect health in the Dutch colonies. In 1966, nearly two decades after Indonesian Independence, President Suharto gave birth to the Seven Health Efforts program instituted in order to cope with the return of epidemics, especially malaria and the poxes. Indonesian post-colonial development projects meant to eradicate epidemic infectious diseases targeted the improvement of...

Child that will carry on their lineage. They are expected to conceal their unresolved conflicts over infertility as they pretend that adopting a child is the same as giving birth (Blum). Adoptive parents who are able to acknowledge the differences between an adoptive and birth family, instead of denying them, have been shown to have better communication and closer relationships with their children (Kirk). The closed-adoption system tends to pit the right of the adopted child to know the identity of his or her birth parents against the right of the birth mother to confidentiality, and against the right of the adoptive parents to maintain exclusive parental roles. The National Council for Adoption (NCFA), a lobbying organization representing traditional adoption agencies, contends that sealed records protect the privacy of the birth mother, who was promised confidentiality (Caplan). A national birth-parent group, Concerned United Birth Parents (CUB), argues that the majority of birth...

Interpretation and appraisal of emotional stimuli from both inside and outside the body to be the major event in emotions. Cognitive theories have a long history, however, going back to the early Greek philosophers. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) suggested that humans and animals can make sensory evaluations of things as being good or bad for them where the evaluation involves the arousal of emotions. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) agreed with Aristotle in his explanation of the arousal of emotions. Rene Descartes (1596-1650) asserted that all emotions are aroused directly through excitation of animal spirits or by arousal of innate reflex actions in combination with physiological changes that are necessary for the organism's survival. Charles Darwin (1809-1882) essentially shared Descartes' notion of emotions. Later, William James (1842-1910) and Carl Lange (1834-1900) reversed the classical, intuitive, or commonsense view that emotion produces bodily changes by arguing that bodily changes...

Increasing anthropological awareness of the cultural construction of disorders and conditions in Biomedicine has angered feminist scholars, who have justly critiqued biomedical theory and practice for its patronizing pathol-ogization of the female. Since its inception, Biomedicine has idealized the male body as the prototype of the properly functioning body-machine (Davis-Floyd, 1992, p. 51), and has defined the female body as dysfunctional insofar as it deviates from the male prototype (Fausto-Sterling, 1992, 2000). Consequently, specifically female biological processes such as menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, and menopause are pathologized and subjected to technological interventions (Ehrenreich &amp English, 1973 Lock, 1993 Martin, 1987, 1990 Rothman, 1982, 1989).

Nondisjunction is known to occur more frequently in the cells of older individuals. This is illustrated by the fact that older women are more likely to give birth to children affected by an aneuploid condition than are younger women. For instance, the risk of a twenty-year-old mother giving birth to a child with Down syndrome is about one in two thousand, compared to an approximate one in thirty risk in the case of a woman of age forty-five. The precise reason for this is not entirely certain, but a simple explanation could be that the older a cell is, the more loosely controlled are the processes occurring within that cell. This would mean that an older cell undergoing meiosis would be more likely than a younger one to ignore the constraints of the spindle checkpoint and hence give rise to aneuploid cells. SEE ALSO Chromosomal Aberrations Crossing Over Down Syndrome Meiosis.

Experiments addressing this question have been carried out using mice chronically treated from birth with anti-p antibody (anti-p mice), a procedure which depletes Ig+ B cells. These mice fail to mount a secondary T cell proliferative response following immunization with hapten carrier, but do so if injected with hapten-coupled normal splenocytes, suggesting that the presence of B cells in lymph nodes is required for T cell priming. The antigen presentation capacity of unfractionated lymph node APCs was much stronger, however, than that of unfractionated spleen APCs.

Neurological complications of epidural analgesia are extremely rare and usually relate to cauda equina syndrome if there has been local neural toxicity by either too high a concentration of adrenaline in the injected drug or, more likely, the wrong drug administered. The majority of neurological complications following childbirth are related not to epidurals but to the management of labour, particularly where a large foetus has become obstructed in the second stage of labour for a prolonged time. This scenario results in compression of the roots and trunks of the lumbosacral plexus within the pelvis, especially L1 as it passes over the brim of the true pelvis. The most common defects subsequently are foot drop (lateral peroneal nerve), sciatic palsies or femoral nerve palsies.

It was not until the mid to late 1800s that even the most basic practices of hygiene were applied to medical procedures. In a Paris hospital between 1861 and 1864,1226 of 9886 pregnant women died a few days after childbirth. The deaths were attributed to puerperal fever. The situation was similar the world over. In Boston in 1843, Oliver Wendall Holmes taught that germs on physicians' and midwives' hands caused puerperal fever (4). Other doctors largely dismissed his ideas. Ignaz Semmelweiss taught the same hygienic concepts in Vienna (11). He realized the dangers of many of the current practices including that of medical students performing post mortem dissections and then assisting in childbirth without so much as breaking to wash their hands. He instituted a strict rule requiring doctors, midwives, and medical students to hand wash in a chloride of lime solution prior to examining expectant women. Mortality fell from 18 to 1 . In 1861 he published The Cause and Prevention of...

Risk, complications during pregnancy and childbirth, developmental retardation during infancy, comorbidity (especially if linked to alcohol and drugs), delinquency and schizotypal personality. The diagnostic criteria for schizotypy can be evaluated on the basis of the symptom list. A fourth module is presented as a questionnaire and given after the interview to assess ordinary life situations, serving as a further assessment of schizotypal features. The module on medication includes questions on the type and dosage of already prescribed medications, either current or earlier 172 .

In the United States, the number of mothers who chose to breast-feed their infants had declined by the middle part of the 20th century, with the decline being most rapid in the middle and upper classes, in association with the economic ability to purchase breast milk substitutes. By the end of World War II, most American women bottle-fed their babies (Raphael, 1973). One of the factors behind the decrease in breast-feeding was active promotion of infant formula by food and drug manufacturing companies. Initially, promotion efforts were aimed at educated women in industrialized nations, but as the birth rate began to fall in the early 1960s, manufacturers turned to developing nations for their markets. Outraged at what were viewed as unethical marketing practices resulting in commerciogenic malnutrition in infants of developing nations, advocacy groups in Europe and North America began what has been called the most successful international boycott in history against Nestl and other...

Legislation beginning with Public Law 94-142 and continuing through the current Public Law 105-17, IDEA 97, has resulted in funding sources for special education and speech-language pathology services through the local educational agency (LEA). Under the legislation, speech-language pathology services are provided, at no cost to the family, but are based on educational communication needs and are heavily focused on language, rather than speech (Kumin, 1998, 2001). Feeding therapy, oral motor therapy, and speech intelligibility treatment are often not viewed as needed to help the child make progress in the regular education curriculum. Comprehensive Down syndrome centers, university clinics, hospitals, and private practitioners can provide speech-language pathology services. But, for many families, cost is a major factor and the educational settings, because they can provide free services, are the largest speech language pathology service providers for children from birth to 21 years...

Jurisdictions whose laws reflect the model of prohibition often assert a strong religious or humanitarian policy interest in protecting what are thought to be the rights and interests of unborn children. However, other objectives have also prompted strict abortion prohibition. For example, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, abortion opponents in the United States cited the need to protect pregnant women from the medical and psychological risks of abortion. There can be no doubt that unskilled, unsanitary abortion procedures are a health risk, and that some women who obtain abortion services experience medical complications and emotional anguish. However, some lawyers and judges doubt that medical abortion performed during the first three months of pregnancy is less safe than pregnancy and childbirth (Tribe Rhode). They similarly doubt that elective medical abortion poses a serious risk of psychological harm. Although one writer has concluded that every woman pays a...

Environment very precisely and prevent baby pigs from being exposed to drafts. In addition, supplemental heat sources such as heat pads or heat lamps are located in each crate. These allow producers even more control of the thermal environment to which the baby pigs are exposed. Sows are monitored closely prior to farrowing and once farrowing begins, employees check sows visually and remove piglets from the birth canal manually if necessary.

The German-born American psychoanalyst Erik Homburger Erikson (1902-1994) attempted to revive the structure of psychoanalysis after the death of Sigmund Freud in 1939. Erikson considered himself to be a Freudian psychoanalyst in spite of some opinions that he fell outside the Freudian tradition. Erikson helped to establish the theoretical approach called ego psychology, along with the Austrian-born American psychoanalyst Heinz Hartmann (1894-1970), the German psychologist Ernst Kris (1901-1957), and the Hungarian-born American psychologist David Rapaport (1911-1960). The theme of ego psychology is that the ego is capable of functioning autonomously and is not confined to internal conflicts with the id and the superego as in Freudian doctrine. Erikson's major contributions to contemporary psychoanalytic theory include a psychosocial theory of development and psychohistorical analyses of famous persons. According to Erikson's theoretical approach, the...

It should of course be recognized that, given the uniqueness of each embodiment, individuals experience their bodies (and, correlatively, the surrounding world) in different ways, depending on initial biological endowments, native and cultivated abilities, activities that are available and or encouraged, and others. Thus, a boy who from birth has been unable to walk experiences I can in quite different ways from a boy who has that ability. If the latter has an accident that renders him unable to walk, moreover, his inability is experienced quite differently from that of the former indeed, while the one undergoes a loss, the other may not, except perhaps in the indirect way of realizing that while others can walk, he has never been able to. One who is born blind experiences the surrounding world quite differently from one who goes blind due to an accident while neither experiences a visual world, the one has to get used to the absence of visual space while the other has never...

Women who develop a major depressive episode within 4 weeks of giving birth are given the specifier with postpartum onset.'' The symptoms do not seem to differ from nonpostpartum depressive episodes but may be more fluctuating in course. Often, the focus of the depression is related to the newborn and can be accompanied by obsessional thoughts of harming the child, suicidal ideation, and psychomotor agitation. Researchers currently disagree about the extent to which depression with postpartum onset is actually distinctive enough to warrant a separate category.

Have you ever had a child If so, do you remember the breathing techniques for the pain during childbirth All right, so they don't work 100 percent, but they can help you relax. Never been to a childbirth class The technique is simple Breathe in and out slowly, emptying your lungs completely before taking another breath. And don't worry no one's going to be grading your technique

Roe made clear that women were not to be ascribed a right to exclusive control over their bodies during pregnancy. Yet the case signaled that the Constitution limits the role government may play in abortion decisions. In the first decade and a half after Roe, the Court struck down numerous state abortion restrictions. States unsuccessfully attempted to control abortion through advertising restrictions zoning restrictions record-keeping and reporting requirements elaborate informed consent and physician-counseling requirements mandatory waiting periods bans on abortions for sex selection the requirement of the presence of a second physician during the abortion procedure the requirement that physicians employ methods of abortion calculated to save the lives of viable fetuses the oversight requirement that physicians send all tissue removed during an abortion to a laboratory for analysis by a certified pathologist the requirement that insurance companies offer at a lower cost insurance...

New medical technology often makes healthcare more effective. However, some devices have become deeply entrenched in practice before their clinical value or lack of diagnostic clinical value has been established. This is illustrated by the electronic fetal heart monitor used during childbirth. After its introduction, this monitor was adopted quickly in hospital obstetrics units, but it was shown later not to improve birth outcome even for high-risk births (see Luthy et al.).

The period between the 1940s and 1960s gave witness to arguably some of the most significant achievements in biochemistry, which gave birth to biochemical genetics and led to the emergence of molecular biology. In 1941, studying the metabolism of the orange bread mold Neurospora crassa irradiated with X-rays to cause mutations, researchers George Beadle and Edward Tatum demonstrated a 1 1 relationship between a mutation and the absence of a specific enzyme, by identifying mutants defective in specific steps of a metabolic pathway. Assuming that each mutant was defective in a single gene, Beadle and Tatum hypothesized that one gene may contain the genetic information responsible for one enzyme, and that mutants with a defective enzyme carried a defective gene for that enzyme (6). In 1944, building on research from 1928 performed by Frederick Griffith, which demonstrated that heat-killed virulent bacteria contained a transforming principle (agent), which could transform live,...

This disease occurs when a patient inherits the HbS mutation from one and the HbC mutation from the other parent. The course of the disease is much milder than in HbS disease, but a (potentially fatal) haemolytic crisis may occur in special situations (e.g. during child birth or surgery).

Model, persons cannot be concerned with a lofty principle such as justice unless their lower need for food is met first. However, metaneeds are as important as basic needs in order to achieve a desirable state of self-actualization. When metaneeds are not fulfilled, the individual typically becomes cynical, alienated, and apathetic toward the world. Maslow identified certain peak experiences of living (such as maternal child-birth) that are characterized by profound feelings of spontaneity and harmony with the universe. Maslow cites various historical figures as illustrations of self-actualized persons Beethoven, Einstein, Lincoln, Jefferson, Thoreau, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Walt Whitman. According to Maslow, such individuals possessed the requisite personality characteristics of self-actualization realistic orientation of themselves within the world, complete acceptance of themselves and others, problem-oriented rather than self-oriented, highly private and detached, high levels of...

DM is a multisystem disorder with highly variable phenotypes and anticipation. Rigidity of muscles after contraction (tonic spasms), muscle weakness, and progressive muscle wasting characterize adult-onset DM. Developmental abnormalities, mental handicap, and respiratory distress are often evident in more severe forms. DM is caused by an expanded CTG triplet repeat in the 3' untranslated region of the protein kinase gene DMPK. The CTG expansion may disrupt DMPK transcription, causing loss of function. CTG expansions may also cause loss of function in two genes flanking DMPK the DM locus-associated home-odomain protein (DMAHP) and gene 59 (also known as DMWD). The CTG expanded transcript could also gain toxic function by interfering with normal processing of various RNAs. Congenital myotonic dystrophy occurs from birth in infants whose mothers have DM, often a case so mild it is never diagnosed. Due to anticipation, the child is much more severely affected than...

The aging process causes many changes, both visible and invisible. In humans, these changes take several forms. In the first two decades of life, from birth to adulthood, aging involves physical growth and maturation and intellectual development. These changes are fairly noticeable and relatively swift compared to the rest of the life span. After reaching physical maturity, humans begin to show subtle signs of physical aging that grow more pronounced over time. Long-term exposure to sunlight and the outdoors may begin to toughen the skin and produce wrinkles on the face and body. The senses change Sight, hearing, taste, and smell become less acute. Gradual changes in the eye cause many older adults to need glasses to read. Hair begins to thin and turn gray. Individuals with less active lifestyles often begin to gain weight, particularly around the waist and hips. Beginning in their 40s (or, rarely, in their late 30s), many women experience menopause, which marks the end of...

Numerous factors influence the growth of the fetus. The fetus derives nutrients from the maternal plasma through the placenta. Mothers on a high plane of nutrition give birth to larger offspring than those with nutritional limitations. Any restriction of blood supply to the placenta and fetus will hinder fetal growth. When competition for available maternal nutrients becomes greater, such as when a multiparous animal produces a larger than average litter, the placenta is generally smaller and the average birthweight more variable than when a litter of average size is produced. 1 Growth of a fetus in a region of the uterine horn with restricted blood supply may result in a runt, which is much smaller than its littermates at birth. Skeletal muscles are particularly small in growth-retarded animals, whereas the brain of the runt is nearly as large as that of its littermates. 6 Since fewer muscle fibers form during fetal development of runts compared to larger littermates, runts tend to...

APP transgenic mice experience high brain expression of APP from birth and are thus analogous in part to patients with DS. However, the mice reported to date have the additional influence of an FAD-linked missense mutation flanking the Ap region of APP (57,58). Although such animals have high neuronal expression of the APP transgene as well as high levels of soluble Ap within their brains from birth, they develop diffuse and compacted Ap plaques resembling those of AD beginning around 5-7 months (mice normally live to about 2-3 years). During the next several months, the transgenic mice show increasing numbers of Ap deposits, many of which are now Congo redpositive (suggesting that they contain fibrillar amyloid), and electron microscopy clearly reveals filamentous amyloid cores (60). Moreover, after Ap plaques develop, the mice show morphologically and immunocytochemically abnormal neurites intimately associated with the amyloid plaques (57,58,60). Cytoskeletal proteins such as the...

The Austrian psychoanalyst Otto Rank (18841939) formulated a theory of personality that may be characterized as an intrapsychic conflict model where all functioning of the individual is expressive of the dual tendency to minimize both the fear of life and the fear of death. According to Rank, life is equivalent to the processes of separation and individualiza-tion, whereas death is the opposite processes of union and fusion. The two opposing fears of life and death are experienced as uncomfortable tension states, much as the concept of anxiety is emphasized by other conflict theorists. However, Rank prefers the more definitive term fear over the diffuse term anxiety. Although the individual does possess biological instincts, they do not provide the intrinsic basis for conflict. More important for conflict is the tendency for living things to individuate and separate. Rank asserts that the mere act of being born is a deeply traumatic experience because the newborn must relinquish the...

Some collagenous structures undergo more drastic changes in mechanical properties over a shorter timescale, which result in a qualitative modification of the mechanical functioning of the tissue and thus justify it being regarded as a mechano-effector. In Homo sapiens and other mammals, this phenomenon is demonstrated by various collagenous structures associated with the female reproductive tract. For example, at the end of pregnancy, the compliance of the uterine cervix increases temporarily by a factor of 12. It switches from being tough and inextensible, in which state it helps to prevent expulsion of the conceptus, to being soft and easily extensible, a condition that permits the dilatation and effacement required for the passage of the fetus through the birth canal. Cervical 'relaxation' depends on two separate processes (1) changes in the synthetic activity of the stromal cells, which secrete less collagen types I and III and small proteoglycans and secrete more of the large...

Most mammals have mating seasons, timed to produce young at a favorable season for rearing. Mating is limited by the female, who is receptive to mating only during a brief period in the mating season known as estrus. Old World monkeys and humans have a different cycle, the menstrual cycle. Mammals exhibit three ways of giving birth. Mono-tremes, such as the duck-billed platypus, is a mammal that lays eggs. Animals that lay The third way to give birth is that of the placental mammals, which comprise 94 of all mammals. Gestation in utero is prolonged. The embryo is nourished by a placenta, a membrane structure produced by and surrounding the embryo. The placenta grows thousands of tiny fingerlike projections called villi into the lining of the mother's uterus to absorb nutrients and oxygen from the maternal blood supply without there being an actual exchange of maternal and fetal blood. The fetus is connected to the placenta by the umbilical cord. Once born, the mammal may be more or...

As described above, intraovarian actions of estradiol and progesterone are intimately connected to ovulation and formation of the corpus luteum. In general, extra-ovarian actions of these hormones ensure that the ovum reaches its potential to develop into a new individual. Ovarian steroids act on the reproductive tract to prepare it for fulfilling its role in fertilization, implantation, and development of the embryo, and they induce changes elsewhere that equip the female physically and behavior-ally for conceiving, giving birth, and rearing the child. Although estrogens, perhaps in concert with progesterone, drive females of subprimate species to mate, andro-gens, rather than estrogens, are responsible for libido in humans of either sex. Estrogens and progesterone tend to act in concert and sometimes enhance or antagonize each other's actions. Estrogen secretion usually precedes progesterone secretion and primes the target tissues to respond to progesterone. Estrogens induce the...

We cannot extrapolate these findings to the situation in developing countries, where the health care system is quite different. In many developing countries, most deliveries in rural areas are conducted by traditional birth-attendants, the families are large, and the frequency of preterm deliveries is at least twice as high as in developed countries.6 Many of the mothers are malnourished and exposed to a variety of infections that may affect the baby in utero or at the time of delivery. These factors need further studies to evaluate their contribution to perinatal brain damage. In developing countries perinatal brain damage would account for 13 to 14 of the putative risk factors for epilepsy in children.7 (Commission ILAE 1994) In a hospital-based study from south India, static encephalopathy related to perinatal brain damage accounted for 9 of putative risk factors. This pathology was the risk factor for 13.5 remote symptomatic epilepsies.26

Most deviations from the expected pattern of fetal development occur because something has gone wrong during pregnancy or the birth process. For this reason, researchers quickly began to focus on the relationship between handedness and birth stressors or pregnancy complications. A large body of data has accumulated that indicates that such pathological factors are associated with an increased likelihood of left-hand-edness. A number of particular factors have been singled out. For example, premature birth, prolonged One of the more interesting suggestions is that certain hormonal imbalances during birth can produce an increased likelihood of left-handedness. A theory closely associated with the neuropsychologist Norman Geschwind is that while in the uterus, if the fetus is exposed to an elevated concentration of the hormone testosterone, this could also produce left-handedness by altering the relative rate at which the two hemispheres of the brain develop. Since testosterone is also...

In the neonatal period, conjunctival and retinal hemorrhages (and some intracranial hemorrhages) can be the result of nonaccidental injuries (violent shaking, direct trauma) or birth trauma, and careful consideration should be given to this differential diagnosis. Birth-related conjunctival hemorrhages may be documented in delivery or neonatal medical notes charts, or they may be seen on family photographs of a newborn child. Note, however, that their absence may be the result of sampling problems and may not exclude birth trauma (I once looked through more than 60 family photographs of one child to find the single photograph that showed a conjunctival hemorrhage that I had seen microscopically). In a living infant (if a shaking injury is suspected), I would have an increased suspicion of shaken baby syndrome (bearing in mind the general clinical history and examination) in an infant presenting at 2 weeks with extensive flame-shaped hemorrhages and at 4 weeks with extensive...

Boerhaave's syndrome refers to full-thickness perforation of the esophagus following a sudden rise in intraesophageal pressure. The mechanism is sudden, forceful emesis in about three-fourths of the cases coughing, straining, seizures, and childbirth have been reported as causing perforations as well. Alcohol is frequently an antecedent to this syndrome, which is seen more commonly in males. The perforation is usually in the distal esophagus on the left side.

The physicochemical basis of these changes derives largely from small animal data. Rats exposed to lead from birth develop mitochondrial dysfunction, neuronal swelling, and necrosis in both the cerebrum and the cerebellum. Exposure on day 10 of life elicited only the cerebellar pathology, and lead exposure after 31 weeks of life failed to produce any of these changes. In combination with manganese, lead has also produced peroxidative damage to rat brains and has been shown to inhibit nitric oxide synthase in the brains of mice. Additionally, an increase in blood arachidonic acid and in the ratio of arachidonic to linoleic acid following lead exposure in several species, including humans, may provide evidence in support of a peroxidative mechanism of damage to neural tissue following lead exposure.

Rhetoric that implied that the life of couples would improve with its use by reducing the burden placed on women. Moslem men actively resisted the planning of their families, and although birth rates among the Chinese and Hindu populations fell in Malaysia, among the Moslem population it rose, something that Ong attributes to the negative reaction of men. Moslem men argued that the Pill was making their wives sick, and even very poor men with large families resisted its use.

Meiosis I (MI) involve reductional division, in which the duplicated sister chromatids stay attached and the paired homologs segregate (disjoin) to opposite poles. In meiosis II (MII), the sister chromatids undergo centromeric separation and segregate as in normal mitotic division. In the human female fetus, oocytes undergo DNA replication and genetic recombination and then remain arrested in meiotic prophase I (diplotene stage) for up to several decades until initiation of oocyte maturation and ovulation in the sexually mature adult female (90). Nondisjunction can occur between homologs in anaphase of MI during oocyte maturation or can occur between sister chromatids in MII at the time of conception (91,92). It is important to note that the actual nondisjunction event does not occur when the mother is a fetus, but occurs during oocyte maturation in the adult female or at the time of conception (90,93). The risk of maternal nondisjunction increases exponentially after the age of 30...

Excessive, and in need of control than male bodies. Women bleed, lactate, swell with child, and give birth. They produce slimy vaginal secretions when aroused, accompanied by fishy odors.1 The reproductive capabilities of a woman's body are abject Women's pregnant and birthing bodies swell bleed and contract, their otherwise concealed parts are broken open. Lactating bodies leak and dribble, irregularly and at times, uncontrollably. The blood of menstruation, which precedes pregnancy, must be contained and hidden. Unlike other bodily secretions urine, feces, even semen, its secretions are not subject to voluntary control and are therefore subject to social regulation. (Mykitiuk 1994 86)

After the first SGT experiments began, many writers made the case for crossing the line between somatic therapy and germline therapy (Zimmerman Berger and Gert Munson and Davis). Those writers argued that some germline interventions are morally justifiable because they promote medical goals such as disease prevention and the relief of suffering. Most of the approximately 5,000 known genetic diseases cause disabilities, premature death, and suffering. Although couples often can use nongenetic methods such as prenatal genetic testing and preimplantation genetic testing to give birth to children without genetic diseases, for some diseases germline therapy offers the only hope of producing a healthy child who is genetically related to the couple. For example, if a male and a female are both homozygous for a recessive genetic disease such as cystic fibrosis (CF), the only way they can produce a healthy child is to use gene transfer techniques to create embryos with normal genes (Resnik and...

Relevant past history should concern enquiry about the progress of mother's pregnancy, the circumstances at birth, psychomotor development, diseases during infancy and childhood, neurological sequel consequent to these diseases, and the time interval before the appearance of the symptoms. The place and the conditions during birth should be documented. The psychomotor development must be evaluated according to age specific milestones including but not limiting to sitting, walking, talking etc. A developmental abnormality is probably a sign of central nervous system (CNS) disease. In developing countries obstetrical trauma and perinatal hypoxic-ischemic brain insults are frequent. Multiparity, prematurity, malnutrition, anemia, lack of hygiene and neonatal infections are highly prevalent and may result in many types of cerebral lesions that could result in seizure disorder in later life.19 Of the 1374 patients with epilepsy studied in the community in 9 African countries, mother's...

Fluorescein staining always should be performed in an effort to identify the dendritic corneal ulcerations characteristic of herpetic disease. If they are identified, treatment is with acyclovir or other antiviral agents under the supervision of an ophthalmologist. Because N. gonorrhoeae is usually acquired during passage through the birth canal, infants under 1 month of age must always be tested for this pathogen with a Gram stain and culture. If gram-negative intracellular diplococci are seen on smear, a single intramuscular injection of ceftriaxone (125 mg) is indicated.1

In Fig.4.33 we repeat the current ramp experiment, using the INap+IK-model with a low-threshold K+ current. The phase portrait of such a model is simple - it has a unique equilibrium, as we illustrate in Fig.4.34. When I is small, the equilibrium is a stable focus corresponding to the resting state. When I increases past I 12, the focus loses stability and gives birth to a small-amplitude limit cycle attractor. The amplitude of the limit cycle grows as I increases. We see that increasing I beyond I 12 results in the transition from resting to spiking behavior. What kind of bifurcation occurs there

Using only a particular discipline's established methods may result in approaches that fail to reveal sufficient information about the problem being explored. This may be a difficulty for research surrounding medical problems particularly important to the elderly, women, men of color, and homosexual males. Pregnancy, childbirth, menstruation, menopause, lupus, sickle-cell disease, AIDS, and gerontology represent healthcare issues for which the methods of one discipline are clearly inadequate.

In symptomatic individuals, certain clinical manifestations are common. In women, menorrhagia is frequently reported and there is an increased risk of bleeding after childbirth. 9 Epistaxis may occur, whereas petechiae and bruising are rather unusual. 9 Bleeding can be excessive and frequently manifests postoperatively, in particular after surgical procedures involving tissues with high fibrinolytic activity such as dental extractions, tonsillec-tomies, prostatectomies, or urinary tract operations. For other surgical interventions such as appendectomies, orthopedic operations, cholecystectomies, or hysterectomies, the risk of severe bleeding is less pronounced. 10 Sometimes the first bleeding episode is observed after circumcision. 9 Bleeding can be immediate, 9 but typically, it is protracted or presents as persistent oozing after surgery. 10

(FSH) and abnormal stimulation testing, no predisposing factor for gonadal dysfunction can be found. Previous recommendations that dietary lactose restriction from birth may be beneficial have in fact not prevented gonadal dysfunction. In the galac-tosemic male, a complete understanding of gonadal dysfunction has not yet been described. The majority but not all of male galactosemic patients had normal pubertal development, and a few individuals have been found to have normal semen. Growth retardation, cognitive impairment, speech impediment, tremor, ataxia, and ovarian failure are frequent complications in spite of a strict galactose-free diet. Elevated galactose phosphate levels may occur in erythrocytes of even well-treated galactosemic patients. This elevation is attributed to endogenous production of the metabolite. A galactose-free diet is recommended from birth. It is recommended to restrict galactose in the diet of pregnant mothers diagnosed perinatally with trans-ferase...

The GI tract is essentially sterile at the time of birth and bacterial colonization begins upon exposure to the environment. Progression of colonization is initially fast, followed by a gradual process of modification over the first few years of life. As the baby passes through the birth canal bifidobacteria and lactobacilli are typically acquired and rapid colonization of mainly enterobacteria occurs. The hospital environment, type of feeding, and type of delivery affect the early colonization of the intestine after birth. Normal vaginal birth permits the transfer of bacteria of the mother as the infant passes through the birth canal. However, with Cesarean delivery this transfer is absent and the hospital or other immediate environment can have a more significant effect on colonization. In these infants, colonization with anaerobic bacteria, especially Bacteroides, occurs later than with vaginally delivered infants.

Pregnancy And Childbirth

If Pregnancy Is Something That Frightens You, It's Time To Convert Your Fear Into Joy. Ready To Give Birth To A Child? Is The New Status Hitting Your State Of Mind? Are You Still Scared To Undergo All The Pain That Your Best Friend Underwent Just A Few Days Back? Not Convinced With The Answers Given By The Experts?